Friday, September 12, 2008

Getting a job

Starting Out, Again: When One Door Closes… - Losing a job for the first time can be an anxiety-laden milestone for twenty somethings. But it can also be an opportunity to rethink your course, and possibly make changes, before you’ve proceeded very far on a career path.

Sharpen Your Aim When Job Hunting Online - As Internet job boards continue to evolve, it can pay to stay current on the latest search tools and tactics. By learning how to use them, job hunters may be able to boost their chances of securing interviews.

Do’s and Don’ts for Emailing Cover Letters and Resumes - Will employers frown on replying to job ads from my work email? Also, should I use the email itself as my cover letter or should I attach one? What is the best file format for attachments? Should I follow up with a hard copy?

Ace Behavioral Interviews by Telling Powerful Stories - Behavior-based interviews have been around for more than a decade, but if you aren’t prepared for them, they can throw you for a loop. You know that you’re in a behavior-based interview when most of the questions begin with statements like, “Tell me about a time when…” and “Describe a situation where….”

For Learning-Impaired Adults, Hardest Part of a Job Is Keeping It - Dan Edmonston, a college graduate who enjoys customer service, tries to hide his ADD on the job to avoid being stigmatized. He and his family members say he has a strong work ethic, but he has been fired a half-dozen times anyway, by employers who don’t understand why he has trouble with distractions and disorganization.

Where You Can Find Sound Career Advice - Although our daughter is a senior pre-med major in college and likes biology, she still isn’t sure what career will best match her interests and passions. Her university’s career center hasn’t been much help. How can we find an adviser to help her? Can you recommend a book that will help? Are there good tests to evaluate career interests?

Planning is key when answering open-ended interview questions - I haven’t interviewed for a job in four years. I’m confident about my skills and qualifications, but I’m definitely rusty when it comes to interviewing. After going on my second interview, I can say that my performance is improving. The one area that I’m not quite there on is answering general questions like, “What can you tell me about your background and why are you a good person for this job?”

Here are my Interview Questions - Someone wrote and asked about the dumb questions I have been told to ask interviewers. Here are some of them. I found them in my email box from my last round of interviewing. And you know what, no matter what I do, I just can’t imagine any of these words coming out of my mouth…

Questions to Avoid during Interviews - You will want to avoid questions about age, religion, sexual orientation and disabilities. Care should be taken as even subtle questions can be problematic. For instance, age discrimination can involve more than just a straightforward inquiry about age or date of birth. Questions about dates of education may also indicate age. Similarly, you may not ask about a candidate’s willingness to work on religious holidays.

What your dream job really pays - Go ahead, enjoy your coffee. Appreciate the coziness of your cubicle. Be grateful for all of the little things that make your day more pleasant. After all, we can’t all spend our work days jetting off to Africa or ordering every dessert on the menu in the name of research. While the rest of us are cramped into cube farms, a few lucky people earn their livings by shopping for designer duds, eating ice cream or traveling the world. The following jobs, envied by people everywhere, are almost too good to be true.

10 Avoidable IT Interview Flubs - A study released the week of Aug. 28 by Menlo Park, Calif., staffing firm Accountemps found that one of the most common mistakes made by candidates in job interviews was having little or no knowledge of the company, according to 47 percent of the senior executives surveyed. While IT recruiters and managers still peg a lack of preparation near the top of their lists of interview gaffes, they cited many others that turned interviewees from dream candidates to inevitable nightmare employees in a matter of moments. Below, eWEEK rounds up some of the worst offenses, and while we’re certain that none of you would ever make such obvious errors, it never hurts to review before your next interview.

10 Ways to Tweak Your Tech Résumé - If members of the IT work force are like most Americans, the thought of trying to get their résumés into such a form that their desired jobs will simply flutter into their laps sends them into a spiral of panic. How can I fit all this on a page? How do I know what they really want to see? Why do I never get callbacks? As it turns out, most résumé writers are committing the same types of blunders: fussing over outdated rules, spending hours on a cover letter that might never be seen by human eyes, and leaving out essential keywords and supporting evidence.

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